Consequence, as a verb

[Beverly Flanigan]

Well, now I can see why Fiske's dictionary itself might be disagreeable.

At 06:31 PM 1/26/2005, you wrote:
>>Eventually, i figured out the translation: "To consequence" was being used
>>as a 1-for-1 stand-in for "to punish". (It was realizing that the noun
>>"consequences" was being used in place of "punishments" that got me to
>>realize this.) Is this a new(-ish) linguistic fashion among child-rearing
>>types, or has this been bubbling along beneath my awareness for a while now?
>
>Robert Hartwell Fiske's "Dictionary of Disagreeable English" defines this
>verb and provides a brief critique:
>
><<Consequence: Idiotic for _discipline_ (or similar words). ... USE
>_punish_. .... / Not yet in many dictionaries, the politically correct,
>though completely inane and pathetic, to _consequence_ is increasingly used
>by psychologists and human resource personnel, themselves often inane and
>pathetic. ....>>
>
>-- Doug Wilson